This is the R-40 house, a straw bale house built by my prof Julia Bourke. It is basically just that: timber frame, straw bales, stucco on the outside and the insde, without anything else. No wire mesh or anything. It is situated in the middle of a low-income housing project in Montreal. Materials are all natural or recycled. Solar passive heating, using fenestration towards the south and an exposed concrete floor for thermal mass, is sure to please the planet. With a house like that, goodbye suburbia, hello density.